Today we net our ripening blueberries. We must! We’ll lose the whole harvest in just moments as soon as the birds spy the deep purple berries. It’s happened before, but not this year if we can help it.
We solve this predator problem by guarding the fruit with a mesh kind of netting with a drawstring on top (made expertly by my neighbor–the one who provides us all with raspberry canes).
When we want to harvest our berries, we’ll just reach down through the top.
We have guarded this fruit well. I realize that much of gardening involves guarding your plants from predators. It’s no accident that as I garden I’m also reading the book of Jude and the repetition of that keyword “kept.” I look up the word, and this verb means to “carefully guard.” So we are “carefully guarded” for Christ (Jude 1:1) and are to “carefully guard” our relationship with God (Jude 1:21).
I think of netting my life against anything that harms my faith. I think of God netting my life against anything that would harm me.
Meanwhile, we let these berries ripen, fully protected.